Trying to find a good first edition--mine has been too well-loved, and that was before I got my hands on it. I see them here and there, I think I'm getting pretty close. But for now, just rereading it.

Which then put me in the mind of (hero):

(I could use this spiffy edition. I just have a janky paperback but it does have essays from Round River in it, so there's that)

And what the hell, as long as I am pouting over different editions of shit I already have, there's this guy too. Ander Monson is unstoppable. His collection of stories called "Other Electricities" might be my favorite of his, but I have a real soft spot for this one. Having been a librarian and a bookseller, I could write my own book about all the amazing crap my coworkers and I have found in books. Money? Check. Letters? Check. USED PROPHYLACTICS?! OH SWEET BABY JEEBUS CHECK please make it stop holy fuck I didn't know I needed to wear a level 4 hazmat suit to work today it's getting dark and I can't feel my legs Good times! Moving on. There's already a new boxed hardcover limited edition out, and my birthday is next month, so you know how that goes.

Well, it is the amazing year 2015, and that can mean only one thing: it's time to take another stab at Infinite Jest. I reread it every two or three years or so, as I feel like, and I'm still getting good stuff out of it, so until it becomes boring to me I'm going to keep doing that. The first time I read it, it had just come out, and I had enthusiastically read previous works of his. I distinctly remember being actually nervous to start it, opening the book and having butterflies. But the thing was, I couldn't get through it. I couldn't finish it for a few years. I had to constantly stop and think about what I was reading, and I found that parts of the book were an actual distraction FROM the book, if that makes any sense. At one point I thought, oh man, this might be unreadable for me. The halting snail's pace at which I progressed through the book kept throwing me off to the point of almost quitting a few times. The readers' notes didn't help, they seemed to just muddy the waters.

Sometime during my attempts at finishing the book, I became hugely frustrated with DFW. I started thinking he had crawled up his own ass and had become all of the pretentious, dishonest things that he had been railing against. I maintain that it wasn't the length of the book that had me on the ropes, it was its' girth. But eventually, like a key turning the tumblers of a lock, the book opened up to me. Or I opened up to it. I began to see what I had been perceiving as inconsistencies and flaws for the beautiful things they were. There's beauty in "mistakes" because there's beauty in effort. In fact, the effort is really the thing. I now see this book, and its' author, as the perfectly imperfect examples of humanity that they are. As I grow, the book grows with me. That's fucking alchemy, right there.

Since that time, I have read the rest of his output with pleasure. I despise and reject the veneration and abject hero worship that has been laid at his feet since his death. The ensuing rabid fan ideal of him as a tragic figure, a doomed soul who just wasn't made for this earth, diminishes his literary legacy and belittles him as a person. There's nothing romantic about that level of depression, nothing poetic about that kind of suffering. His life is not the sum and substance of the way it ended. And whatever we think of his writing, it is made neither better nor worse for his death, nor by the method.

Don't do books......attention span of.....ooooh, another beer has just arrived!

Fuckin' books, the stupid bastards. I hear you, they're bullshit. I mean, look, they're heavy, they take up space, they fall on your head and feet, and they give you paper cuts. Books are dumb.

As many of the goddamned things as have injured my bookish compatriots and I, shelving and selling and cataloging and lending, I can assure you: no one has bitched about them more than we. And hey, a little drinkin' on the job at Christmastime didn't hurt. Not so much at the libraries themselves, more at the bookshops. Although they do issue you a hip flask upon graduation from library school, I discovered. You know, just standard regulation. It has also been my experience that few folks drink more than librarians when you turn them loose--no kidding. Anytime there's a conference anywhere, look out, the librarians crank it up on the regular. That's a little piece of information I gathered straight from the mouths of bartenders and convention center staff. Armed with hip flasks and cardigans, bored and thirsty! Can you see it?

Fond, slightly hazy memories of manic holiday seasons at bookshops, my buddies and I running around like crazy people, death grips on our coffee thermoses with juuuuuuust a little something extra, if you will. Now THAT is how you deal with irrational customers, folks.

Important safety tip: Don't read lots of exciting publishing news after you've knocked back a few glasses, or you might unintentionally read the above list in the style of these fashion icons/well-known voracious readers:

Haven't bought this recently but I noticed that they are making a film of it. It's one of my favourite books, beautifully written in dialect, heartbreakingly sad. Sunset Song is part of a trilogy called A Scots Quair and its written by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, who wrote Spartacus. Sort of afraid to watch the film, 1. in case I cry too much (it upset me for days when I first read it) and 2. in case it's shit. After all, films of your favourite books often don't match up to the majesty they've made in your mind.

Haven't bought this recently but I noticed that they are making a film of it. It's one of my favourite books, beautifully written in dialect, heartbreakingly sad. Sunset Song is part of a trilogy called A Scots Quair and its written by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, who wrote Spartacus. Sort of afraid to watch the film, 1. in case I cry too much (it upset me for days when I first read it) and 2. in case it's shit. After all, films of your favourite books often don't match up to the majesty they've made in your mind.

I would recommend his stuff heartily – there's not much of it, he died when he was really young, of TB. But his short stories are also very beautiful. xx

Been waiting patiently for this film adaptation. It's taken quite a long time to get it released. I love Terence Davies' work and Peter Mullan is one of my favourite actors. It's showing at the London Film Festival in October and is at the top of my list for when tickets go on sale next week. I haven't read the book, Helen - should I read it before I see the film?

_________________And I listen to you call, I hardly hear you at all
I walk the quiet night, watch the river rolling by

Yes, do read it! It's written in Scottish lowland dialect, which takes a couple of pages to get your head round but, once you do, it's powerful and beautiful, like the characters are singing, rather than speaking. It's desperately sad though, so be prepared to cry on the Tube!!

It is part of a trilogy, which follows the life of the main character, Chris, from childhood to old age, and you can buy them collected into one book.

He has written a short stories book called Speak of the Mearns which is also fab. And Sunset Song introduced me to the expression 'gloaming' which is my absolute favourite word, describing the time when the day is over but the night hasn't quite begun. He has a description of it, which you will get from the book but probably not from the film, which still gives me goosebumps 25 years on.

And thanks for the info about the London Film Fest. I will go (with a mansize box of tissues)!!! xxxx

Just finished the most unnecessary necessary book I've read this year. Do you like laughing like a crazy person on the bus? Crying like a basket case in the coffee shop? Then pick up a copy today! For real though, this book will make you feel grateful and full and give you the therapeutic ass-kicking you deserve. Put it on your holiday list!